


A Few Rules for Giving the Perfect Gift

by magikarpeggio



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Gen, One Shot, Rules, the greatest gift of all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 17:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15442641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magikarpeggio/pseuds/magikarpeggio
Summary: Villanelle wants to give Eve a present but struggles to find just the right thing. So she takes to the internet for advice.Set around Episode 1x04, "Sorry, Baby."





	A Few Rules for Giving the Perfect Gift

There are so many rules on the internet about how to give the perfect gift that Villanelle can’t understand half of them. It makes her furious. 

_You should only give someone else what you value yourself._

Villanelle squints her eyes for a moment as she considers the words on her smartphone screen. What does she value? She likes being good at her job. But Eve is already good at her job. If she gets too much better, she’ll find Villanelle before she’s ready. So that’s out. Villanelle continues to run through different possibilities in her mind. Travel? Cool cities? Maybe she can pick out a really fun place for her next murder: somewhere Villanelle has always wanted to go, somewhere maybe a little bit romantic, with a few nude beaches and really good shopping. She's lost in the possibilities.

Oh. Villanelle smacks her forehead. It’s so obvious. She thinks back to Eve’s suitcase, still in her apartment, with its depressing contents strewn over her bedroom floor. She thinks of sensible shoes and makes a face. 

_Think about what your recipient might value and need._

Eve needs clothes! Villanelle values clothes. It’s perfect. She’s a genius. She’ll buy Eve nice clothes and Eve will be seduced by them, and also by Villanelle’s excellent gift-giving. She can’t understand why she didn’t think of it immediately. She blames Google and makes a mental note to figure out who’s behind it so she can hurt them later. 

She moves on to the next rule.

_Think back on gifts that worked, and gifts that didn’t._

Villanelle ignores this one. Have there been gifts that didn’t work? Of course, yes. Fine. Her mind, like a traitor, flits back to Anna for a brief moment, and she thinks with annoyance about what a fuss Anna made when she killed her husband. Was that a fantastic gift? Yes. Did it work? No. It wasn’t anything like Villanelle had imagined – no grateful kisses, no hot sex on the marital bed – but that was Anna’s fault, almost certainly. 

_Presentation is everything._

Villanelle feels confident that she has this one down to an art and keeps reading. She has always had a knack for making her presents memorable. It isn’t as hard as people think: staging is everything. 

She thinks of how she could best give Eve really cool clothes in a way where Eve would notice how cool they are. It helps to have a contrast, sometimes; so, like, if she killed someone who wasn’t very cool – like Eve’s husband, probably – and put the clothes next to him, the clothes would look even better in comparison. But this is impractical - he might struggle and mess the clothes up? - and also it didn’t work well last time. 

So she’ll try something else this time. Maybe a surprise? She knows she’ll think of the perfect presentation eventually. No need to worry about that right now when she could be shopping for Eve. 

_If you want to give a gift that someone will appreciate, then you should focus on getting a good gift and ignore whether it is a thoughtful gift or not._

A few hours later, Villanelle packs the suitcase with the gifts she’s selected for Eve. She doesn’t want to be overconfident but she knows they’ll make an impression. After all, she did research; she followed the confusing rules; she knows she definitely chose good gifts. They’re all really fantastic. Really nice material, really nice design. She thinks of Eve touching what she’s chosen for her and she shivers, imagining the way the clothing will feel against Eve’s bare skin.

It’s almost like she’ll be touching her herself. Almost. 

_But if you want to feel closer to the person you are giving gifts to, then put as much thought into your gift as you possibly can and do not be offended when your thoughtfulness is overlooked._

Villanelle isn’t there to hear Eve scream when she opens the suitcase. 

Sorry, baby.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a spicy "Villanelle picks out seductive clothes for Eve, seductively!" fic ... but then it turned into this thing. My apologies. To be fair, she is the kind of person who asks you out on a date by pinning you down in a bathtub and screaming at you. 
> 
> The quotes are taken from this NYTimes article by John Tierney: "The Perfect Gift? It's the One They Asked For." (located here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/science/science-of-gift-giving.html) and Susan Krauss Whitbourne's Psychology Today piece, "The Narcissist's Guide to Gift-Giving" (located here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201512/the-narcissist-s-guide-gift-giving). Mostly selected and fiddled with at whim.


End file.
